Table of Contents
Intro
How often do you scroll through your Insta feed and see something you’d love?
Maybe a dress. Shoes. Or sticky tape that looks like sushi.
Is it weekly?
Daily?
Hourly? (#guilty🙋)
But then you just… scroll on. Because well, you just can’t be bothered to start hunting on Google to find out more about it.
It happens.
But not for much longer.
The days of desiring without the ability to buy on social media are numbered.
And social shopping is on the rise. Very rapidly.
Slowly but surely, most of the brands we know and love are starting to embrace it.
They’re not only turning their social pages into storefronts. They’re turning them into cash registers.
And it’s not just brands. All our favorite influencers and celebs are trying to elbow in on the action.
So instead of just advertising the latest must-have lippy, protein powders or ‘skinny tea’ (*AVOID THESE*), you can now buy them there and then through their social posts.
What a time to be alive.
So, what is social commerce?
This is the point where social media and commerce become one.
Where you can buy while you browse, and shop while you scroll.
All within your favorite social platform.
Be it Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or Twitter, social commerce means that you no longer need to even leave the comfort of your feed to make a transaction.
And this trend is growing. With as many as 30% of consumers claiming they’d make a purchase on major social platforms.
Considering that monthly active users reach…
- 2.38 billion on Facebook
- 321 million on Twitter
- 1 billion on Instagram
- 100 million on Snapchat (in N. America)
- 250 million on Pinterest
That’s a helluva lot of people.
And the top 500 retailers are already bringing in over $6.5 billion from social shopping.
The time to join the social commerce party is now.
You don’t want to miss out, right?
Why would I need it?
Well. For starters, as you can see above, your audience is already there. And they’re engaged.
- On average, people have 7.6 social media accounts
- The average daily time spent on social is 142 minutes a day
- People spend 15 minutes more time on social than watching TV every day
- And most impressively, 57% of millennials and 45% of Gen Z (those most likely to be on social media) agree that ads they see are becoming more relevant
Now consider how much you’re already spending on social ads.
US$98,247m has been spent on social media advertising so far in 2019.
And this is set to rise. All the way up to 22.9% of your total marketing budget within the next 5 years.
Basically. You’re already investing money to get precious eyes on your products.
So why not make that extra move to decrease multiple steps in the sales funnel and sell more?
Make it easier for your audience to buy there and then.
And capitalize on your existing expenditure and reach.
66% of brands are already giving social commerce features a try.
The only thing you have to lose is: well, nothing.
Making it happen
Bringing social commerce into your marketing strategy couldn’t be easier.
And Jumper.ai can help you connect the dots from discovery all the way through to purchase.
Cutting multiple tedious steps from the traditional social media sales funnel to create a perfectly seamless experience.
Let’s talk about the customer journey and look at some social commerce examples:
- Discovery
Social media is one of the most powerful ways to generate awareness of your company. Fact.
Just look at the stats above. Billions of people are spending hours scrolling their feeds. Every single day.
But with such scroll time, comes great competition. Not only from fellow brands, but also from publishers, celebrities, influencers and even the viewer’s Uncle Jim. Who clearly loves fishing.
A strong first impression is important. Really important. You want to attract the right people at the right place at the right time. And very importantly, with the right tone of voice.
Because this will determine the quality and quantity of your leads.
What to do?
- Know your target audience: Find out everything you can about the people you want to sell to – from age, to online behavior. Then create posts that will appeal to them.
- Stand out: To get noticed, you need creative that will catch the eye of your target audience. Learn more about nailing your Facebook ads here and here.
- Experiment: Don’t be afraid of a little trial and error as you fine-tune your posts. Jump between images, videos, live stories and new formats to discover what resonates best.
- Messaging: Try to focus on one simple and easy-to-understand benefit of your product or service. You can keep things short and sweet with well-known and well-loved items. But be aware if your offering is more complex or new, you’ll need to go a bit more in-depth with the details. More on that here.
How Jumper can help:
Posting the same product onto multiple social media sites is boring. A total snoozefest.
Jumper gets it.
Which is why they’ve made it super easy to upload all your content to several platforms from one simple, user-friendly dashboard.
Not only will this save you time, it’ll save your sanity too.
Here you’ll be able to keep track of your products and everything you post. You can run sales, check out your analytics and generally keep an eye on everything that’s live from the same perfectly purple place.
2. Trust
Right. You’ve caught your target audiences’ eye and they know you exist.
Now what?
Time to nurture that connection. Build a relationship. Make sure they truly and undoubtedly know that your brand is worth parting with their hard-earned money for.
Because that’s a really difficult feat.
People are very particular about who they buy from. And often spend a lot of time researching, and seeking the opinions of others, before taking the next step.
What to do?
- Educate, educate, educate: Tell your target audience even more about your product. Give them an insight into your business. Let them know exactly how you’ll make their lives better.
- Back up your benefits: A whopping 92% of online consumers trust content written by other users above all other forms of marketing. So where possible, bring testimonials and user-generated content into your strategy.
- Be responsive: Reply to comments. Interact with fans. Get a conversation going. The more you engage with your fans, the more trust they’ll have in your company.
- Collect and use your data: Make analytic tools like Facebook Insights and Facebook Pixel your best friend. Then use the data that they offer you to retarget people who have already engaged with your brand, and to help you write more specific messaging that will hopefully lead to more conversions.
How Jumper can help:
Did you know that Facebook Messenger communication is more effective than email marketing?
True story.
In fact, they can lead to a super impressive 80% open rate.
With Jumper, you can easily send broadcast messages on Facebook to customers, and even people who’ve previously engaged with your brand. This is a great way to keep them in the loop about what’s happening with your business and offer discounts to encourage sales.
Personalized messages like these are also fantastic at building trust.
Find out more about permissions and best practices here.
3. Conversion
And now. Let us move on to the most important of all stages of this journey.
The conversion.
The sale.
The money-maker.
This is the point at which your audience member makes that magical, wondrous transformation into a customer.
The goal here is for them to take action. This could be a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading an ebook. (Conversions don’t necessarily mean they’ve bought something.)
What to do?
- Discounts and offers: To nudge people over the finish line, try offering them special offers or promotions.
- Cross-sell and up-sell: Offer existing customers deals and offers on relevant things that may be of interest to them.
- Create urgency: If someone feels like they’re about to miss out on an amazing deal, they’ll be more likely to commit. So consider adding flash sales to your arsenal. Find out how Jumper can help with that here.
- Make things really easy: Ensure that your target audience can check out in just a few simple steps. Much more on that below.
How Jumper can help:
Shoppable posts
Transform social posts across all platforms into one-click shoppable hotspots.
And all you need is a dedicated hashtag.
The post above is one of many Jumper created with Marvel to launch the new Avengers movie. By commenting #AvengersSG below, fans were directed to Messenger where they could buy tickets there and then.
No queues. No boring steps. No hassle.
Both Instagram and Snapchat also have their own version of this feature, which has taken off pretty rapidly, however, Instagram Checkouts are only available to a very small number of brands.
Look out for the shopping bag icon on posts that feature tagged products. When tapped, they reveal product descriptions and prices, which can then be purchased through the retailers shopping page.
Messenger Chatbots
These are automated checkout bots that lead customers through a sale within an existing social media platform. And they’re something that Jumper.ai specializes in.
To use them, customers just need to show interest by clicking or commenting, and they’ll be redirected to DMs. Here they’ll find a friendly chatbot who will simulate a human-like conversation, before helping the user to make a purchase.
And we’ve written a blog all about them here.
They can be used for pretty much everything – booking a train ticket, ordering a takeaway, getting help with a clothes delivery, and much more. And they can be found within most existing messaging sites, like Facebook Messenger, KIK, Line, Youtube or Instagram, and social commerce platforms.
The below image is an example of an interactive chatbot Jumper created for Marvel for the release of Marvel’s Ant-Man and the Wasp.
To purchase tickets, fans were direct to Messenger where they could select the show they wanted to see while being entertained by gifs and movie-related commentary.
4. Advocacy
Word-of-mouth is one of the strongest ways to bring in new customers.
People are more likely to trust a brand recommended by their friends than any other form of advertising.
Social media allows brands to easily stay in touch with customers. And share their posts, reviews and user-generated-content (UGC) in mere seconds.
Which is why turning loyal customers into proactive advocates for your business should be the ultimate goal of your marketing funnel.
What to do?
- Be engaged: Just because the sale has been made, it doesn’t mean you have to forget about your customers. Now it’s more important than ever to maintain a relationship with them to encourage repeat business. So make sure you keep responding to comments and share reviews.
- Build a community: Give your customers a space to talk to like-minded fans, post photos of your products, problem-solve together and basically rave about your brand to each other… and new fans.
- Consider a social referral program: Reward your fans for being loyal by offering them incentives to recommend you to a friend.
How Jumper can help:
Not only can Jumper help you right up to the point of conversion… they’ll be with you in after-sales too.
I’m not sure if after-sales is even a word. But let’s roll with it.
Very excitingly, Jumper is currently developing an amazing CRM feature so you can give your customers the best post-sale TLC you could ever imagine.
It’s so good, you’ll have repeat-buying passionate advocates lining up at your digital door for eternity.
However, as it’s still being Beta tested, I can’t say too much about it yet. Soz.
But if you sign up to our jam-packed newsletter here… you’ll be the first to know all about it.
In summary…
While social commerce can feel a little bit daunting to newbies out there, there really has never been a better time to bring it into your strategy.
As a consumer yourself, you already know how impatient we all are. We want everything immediately, now, instantly, straight away.
And this ‘on-demand’ economy is a virtue.
Social commerce closes the gap between your customers’ expectations and reality.
You can give them exactly what they want, exactly when they want it.
So it’s a win-win all round.
As I’ve already talked about above, Jumper.ai have a tonne of great features that will make your business social commerce savvy in no time.
So get in touch today. 👋
